


where do we go from here?

by dancer4813



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, I'm so sorry for this blame Cinder for making me write it, Spoilers for Episode 102, Tal'dorei Campaign
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-19 02:25:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11303820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancer4813/pseuds/dancer4813
Summary: Spoilers for Episode 102, kind-of...What is it like when you lose the other half of your heart?





	where do we go from here?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cinderpaw1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinderpaw1/gifts).



> When two friends are discussing what-ifs, this is the sort of writing that appears.  
> (Blame Cinder for it!)
> 
> I'm so, so sorry.

Vax surveys the battlefield through watering eyes, the heat of the fireball fading around him. He sees his sister’s prone body, held as his own, only a few meters in front of him. They hadn’t been _nearly_ as well prepared as they should have been, and it already showed with the number of Vox Machina who were incapacitated by Vecna’s spell. He sends a quick prayer to the Raven Queen for guidance, for help, and hopes that it will be enough.

Above him, Vecna speaks a single word that, even though Vax doesn’t feel its effects, still causes a prickle down his spine at the unnatural language and its ominous portents.

The prickle turns into a full-blown chill down his frozen arms and legs as Vax sees Vex’s body slump, limp, to the ground, and Vax’s necklace pulses, the red glow shining off the obsidian floor beneath his cheek. He wants to yell, but he’s still stuck in place, wings bent awkwardly and limbs non-functional.

Pike is still up, he tells himself. Pike can get to her in time.

But then Vecna immediately turns to him, and Vax feels the gaze of the luminous green eye, the gaunt skin pulling back in a menacing smile as he spoke into Vax’s mind.

“Say hello to your Mistress for me, _Champion_.”

A green ray of energy coalesces in the lich’s outstretched palm, and Vax closes his eyes, imagining death as he has so many times before….

But he hears Scanlan’s shout from out of nowhere-

“You know what the problem with your face is? _I CAN SEE IT!_ ”

Vax opens his eyes, and they dart to Vecna to see the outcome-

The spell is gone, the lich looking angrily out of Vax’s vision.

Vax wants to laugh and then cry a bit despite being held fast – he really _has_ missed Scanlan.

Grog slams blow after blow into Delilah, but claws made of shadows come up out of the ground and trap him in place. Vax feels them around himself too, their cold weight against his own body, slowly sucking life away from him. Grog disappears inexplicably, and there’s so much going on, if he could just _break free_.

“How does it feel, Percival?” Delilah shouts, bloodied face in a twisted grin, looking toward the other side of the tower as she backs up to stand directly over his sister’s body, and he _can’t move but-_ “To have your beloved taken away from you?”

The necklace resting against Vax’s throat beats in time with his own heart.

Her grin sets in, almost hysterical on her face, and Vax tries again to move, to push the limits of the spell, but even if he could there would be no way for him to get to her in time as Delilah’s palm glows green with the same energy Vecna’s had, and it stretches down to hit Vex’s body, limp and helpless-

And his sister’s body disintegrates into dust, leaving her armor to fall to the ground, empty.

 

* * *

 

Vax is broken out of his stunned shock by Percival’s scream, echoed by several others, and the dragon tooth at his throat pulses harder, more urgently, as if he could do something instead of lying prone while the world breaks around him, before the glow vanishes and the beating stops.

He sees Delilah’s body jerk once, twice, and Vax feels searing hot anger flow through his veins as he eggs Percy’s shots on, living vicariously through the way Delilah winces with the aftershock of Animus’ shots.

“Join your husband in the depths of Hell!” Percy yells, and Vax feels his whole body echo the sentiment as he sees Delilah’s head explode, gore flying behind her and splattering over the lip on the edge of the tower.

There was a moment where time seemed to slow and Delilah’s head, her leering grin still in palce, spun by the force of the blow.

(She fell slowly, almost in slow motion, her body arcing _far_ too gracefully to the ground, and after she had fallen, Vax almost expected his sister’s body to reconstitute, to breathe again, but Delilah’s prone form lay next to Vex’s armor, the white dragon scales formerly of Vorugal’s hide caked in dirt and dust from the Shadowfell.

Nothing changed.)

Vax feels a hand on his arm and a heat course through him. He starts, whipping around to see Pike, eyes teary, looking at him sympathetically. But he doesn’t want that.

“We’re trying to get out of here,” Pike explains, and Vax feels anger pulse through him again, like his heartbeat, though the necklace had gone still.

“They’re not dead yet,” Vax growls, and he wonders if the searing force that flows through him is what Grog felt when he falls into a rage. “They need to die.”

He can hardly think as Vecna throws spells at him and around him, Pike taking a black ray of energy to the heart, the lich too far away for his daggers to be of use. Scanlan cries out, and Vax turns to see the black knight standing over Scanlan, who’s back is bloodied as he curls around Vex’s armor.

Vax throws his daggers with pinpoint accuracy, and Grog roars behind him as the knight staggers at the force of the blows. To the side, Keyleth stands, hands outstretched, obviously preparing for a Planeshift spell, and Vax’s heart feels like it might break with indecision.

Looking around, however, it’s obvious that they are, despite having more players on the field, vastly outnumbered.

The rest of the battle blurs together as Scanlan sings and Pike’s armor glows, and Vax’s body moves without his control, as if he neither can stop it nor change its course.

It takes only seconds to complete the chain required for Planeshift and Scanlan sings as the terrible sucking sensation of being teleported via magic runs through Vax, who can hardly think of anything else for one, blessed moment.

And then their feet hit grass in the Feywild and it’s almost as if the weight of the world falls on top of him as Vax collapses, fingers digging into the soft dirt beneath them. He yells, the anguished cry wrenched from his own mouth, almost unrecognizable as his pain rushes in and through him, building and building and building-

The crack of a gunshot echoes behind him, then another, and Vax, chest heaving, turns to see Percy, Animus held at the ready, taking point-blank shots into Delilah’s torso, mutilating the flesh beyond belief.

Her green eye swivels in its socket, the unnatural glow almost the same color as the grass she lays upon, and Vax thinks he might be sick.

“You promised!” he shouts instead, swallowing back bile as he screws his eyes tightly shut. “You made her a deal- you made _me_ a deal – my life for hers, and her promise to fight for you. Don’t you _dare_ go back on your word!”

The rush of his blood, the beat of his heart, roars through his ears, and in the blackness of his mind Vax can almost swear that he sees his sister’s body, lifeless and splintered, like glass, held together by thousands of golden threads.

_Her destiny is not yours…_

The voice comes to him as it always does – cryptically and without any discernable emotion – and he wants to scream at her again, to reach into the moment between life and death and _pull her from it_ to face him.

_There are so many paths to walk, my Champion, and so many purposes. There are dead-ends and crossroads, and places where the way gets too hard to get through on one’s own. I have not forsaken you, nor my promises. Be careful of your accusations, and see what time will bring._

His eyes open in an instant, and Vax looks around to see the rest of his companions spread across the field, Grog’s hand on Pike’s shoulder, both of them in tears, Percy’s gun fallen to the ground, his face screwed up in pain, Scanlan holding his sister’s armor, broom, and bow, and Keyleth, strong and steady, approaches him, kneeling down to lay a hand on his shoulder.

One sob, forced from his lungs at the contact, becomes more, violently pulled from his chest as he feels the pain of his heart being ripped in two.

And, though Keyleth gathers him into her arms, holding him as he lets himself fall apart in front of what remains of his family, Vax is not sure he can ever be whole again.

**Author's Note:**

> Vax rolled a natural 20 on a Wisdom/Religion check, otherwise the RQ _might_ have ignored him...
> 
> Ifou want more pain, check out my main tumblr: [dancer4813](http://www.dancer4813.tumblr.com), or my writing tumblr: [dancerwrites](http://www.dancerwrites.tumblr.com).


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